Have you come across large piles of garbage in neighbourhoods and streets and smelly waste disposal sites polluting the environment of low- and middle-income countries? Do you want to know what kind of sustainable solutions are appropriate to better manage waste and enhance recycling and recovery? If yes, this course is for you!
This course provides you with an overview of the municipal solid waste management situation in low- and middle-income countries. It covers key elements of the waste management system, such as its technical, environmental, social, financial and institutional aspects. Besides understanding the challenges, you will be introduced to appropriate and already applied solutions through selected case studies.

Taught By

Dr. Christian Zurbrügg

Imanol Zabaleta

Félix Schmidt

Transcript

Hi, and welcome to the second week of modules on municipal solid waste management in developing countries. In the second week, we will be covering the governance aspects of the integrated sustainable waste management framework. This graph shows a simplified overview of the various stakeholders, and the functions in the waste management system. In this first module, we will start with the issues around policy making, legislation, and regulation. If you're a lawyer, you will really enjoy this. If you're an engineer, go fetch a coffee! For municipal waste governance, formulation of policies and their translation into legislation and regulations, are the backbone of waste management. Policies are based on goals and guiding principles. For waste management, the general goals behind the policy formulation include the protection of public health and the environment, as well as the recovery of resource value from discarded products and waste materials. The guiding principles in the waste policies may vary, and may include several of the following in this list. These guiding principles may not necessarily be mutually consistent or compatible among each other. Hence, translating this into instruments may require more clarification and further setting of priorities. One example is the concept of the waste hierarchy, which highlights the most preferred action at the top, avoiding waste, then down to the least preferred action, of disposal in landfills. Policies and strategies are given flesh through their translation into legislation. But laws and regulations and their enforcement are just one way to support implementation of policy strategies. Other instruments for example, that can help support implementation, are instruments of social mobilization, or economic instruments, such as incentives or disincentives. Depending on the goal, a mix of these instruments can be used. Typical social instruments are awareness raising, for instance used to combat littering, or in general to change perceptions and behavior. Also economic instruments can be used to achieve certain policy goals. In Bangladesh for instance, the government developed 3 economic instruments: the first is tax holidays for 5 to 10 years for all formal waste treatment facilities. Second, less important duties on relevant waste management equipment, and third, no VAT or sales tax on the sales of compost. All such policy instruments are prepared or implemented by various governmental agencies. An inclusive governance system however, seeks agreement to plant processes and practices with all stakeholders in a participatory decision-making process. Legislation and regulation can be used to give effect to any aspect of a waste management policy. Usually, the bottom line is set as to protect human health and the environment. Here, we can distinguish between 2 approaches, either regulate specification or function. Let me explain this briefly. Regulating by specification may only define, for instance, accepted technologies of waste treatment, or define specific ways of how a waste treatment facility must be constructed or operated. For instance, what type of landfill liner needs to be used in landfills. The other approach is to regulate by function, which prescribes standards to which a technology has to perform. In the case of the landfill liner, it is not the type of landfill liner that is defined, but rather the required permeability of the liner, leaving flexibility to what technology is used. And just staying on the issue of landfill design and operation, let me share with you this very interesting example from South Africa. South Africa established minimum requirements for waste disposal by landfill, and you see the document shown here, which facilitate the enforcement of the landfill permitting system, as provided in the Environment Conservation Act. The basic rule decides on the minimum requirement, but what is interesting, is that since site specific conditions may vary, provision is made for a defensible flexibility in the requirements. A classification system was developed, where landfills can be differentiated into different classes. This is the table of landfill classes. You see distinction of 2 types of landfills: general waste and hazardous waste. Then, in the class of general waste, a further classification is based on the size of the landfill. And then, in each of these sizes, there is further classification of leachate production, which derives from an estimation of the factor B, which is the climatic water balance, which is the difference between rainfall and evaporation, for the wet season of the wettest year on record. Based on this classification, one can then determine the requirements here shown, for instance, if the landfill requires a responsible person, if boreholes are required, or if leachate management or daily cover is required. Similar tables and requirements were also developed for siting landfills, required site investigations, landfill design, liner components, landfill operation closure and so on. These minimum requirements for waste disposal by landfill of South Africa have been used as a basis in other countries, for example for the Botswana landfill guidelines, or for the standards in Namibia and Swaziland. Another important role of legislation and regulation is a clear allocation of authority. Legislation established duties and authorities of appropriate government agencies and organization at all levels, starting from the various national ministries, down to provincial institutions and municipal authorities. This is shown nicely if you take a look at the municipal solid waste management rules of India, which you can google on the internet, either the rules of 2000, or the recent draft rules of 2015. When looking at the rules of 2000, you will also see a section specifying that slum and squatter areas need to be serviced with waste collection. This reflects nicely the principle of universal service coverage. Another aspect that legislation can regulate is how a specific waste fraction is managed. In the case of India for instance, the rules restrict landfilling only for non-biodegradable waste, while they define specific organic waste treatment technologies for the biodegradable fraction. What we should however not forget is that a regulation must also be enforced, and in fact this seems to be not so easy in many countries. This requires capacity to measure, as well as the power and independence to then penalize. Another example of the role of legislation is for instance to ban certain materials or certain substances in materials. A typical example is the ban of cadmium or mercury batteries. This example however, shows an exciting case from Rwanda, where legislation of 2008 has prohibited manufacturing, importation, use and sale of polythene bags. If you ever travel to Rwanda, you will notice that upon arrival, your luggage is screened for plastic bags and if you have any, these are taken away and replaced with paper bags. Also in markets, you will only find paper bags. This ban is tough to enforce, but Rwanda is managing quite well, and has taken up this step mostly in the realization that they do not have the capacity, and the facilities to manage this critical fraction of solid waste. Finally, my last example of the role of legislation is when a specific country has committed to some international agreement and then needs to implement a strategy to comply with this international obligation. For instance, the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, or the Kyoto Protocol for greenhouse gas emission reduction. This example from Bangladesh shows the wide range of policies, rules, acts and so on, affecting solid waste management. This also shows the complexity of the legal and institutional matrix, and maybe that is why we have so many lawyers worldwide, but what I want to highlight here, in this context, is that Bangladesh has developed one specific strategy, which guides the country to fulfill the global climate mitigation efforts: the National Clean Development Mechanism strategy of 2005. We will talk more about CDM and greenhouse gases in later modules. Now, let me summarize the key issues of this module. We have talked about how formulation of policies and strategies, and their translation into legislation and regulations are the backbone of waste management. All policies and strategies start with a clear definition of goals, and are based on certain principles that we as a society want to adhere to. Regulation and enforcement, although important, are however not the only instruments to implement policies. As shown in this graph, there are also instruments of social mobilization or economic instruments, like incentives or disincentives. Then we also looked at some examples from across the world. In a legal and regulatory framework, it is crucial to define the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, for instance of the different levels in agencies in government. However, not only legislation must be clear, it must also be enforceable. This requires adequate legitimacy, political support, skills, and institutional capacity and respective financing.

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